tion. When the State supplies the funds, it is bound to superintend their distribution; and ecclesiastics, of whatever denomination, bear themselves presumptuously, when they step forward and insist that they must monopolize the management. Such, however, is the claim which has been long and persistently urged by Irish Roman Catholic prelates. Their adherents already enjoy by far the larger portion of the grant voted by Parliament for national education; the priests are the patrons of very many of the national schools; and an immense majority, as well of the teachers, as of the scholars, are of their communion. But the papal hierarchy are not satisfied. They continue to agitate for denominational education. They contend that, whilst the State should supply the funds, they themselves should directly or virtually manage the whole machinery. They maintain that they should select the ordinary schoolbooks; and that Protestant masters, however competent, should not be suffered to give even secular instruction to Roman Catholic children. According to their views, Popery should be mixed up with grammar and geography, elocution and arithmetic. The Church is not safe, should the elements of literature and science be dispensed, in their purity, to the rising generation. Could the Romish hierarchy demonstrate, by an appeal to experience, that wherever their system has been fully developed, its professors have been most orderly and prosperous, their pretensions might be entitled to some consideration; but the logic of facts sternly forbids concession. It is notorious that, in every part of the country where Popery is rampant, the people are most wretched, turbulent, and demoralized. Discreet statesmen may therefore very properly decline to confer on such claimants any additional influence over education.

In countries where every one is permitted, within certain limits, to give full utterance to his views, and to proceed according to his own judgment, the community reaps benefit from the collision of sentiments and the liberty of action; for all questions are contemplated from a multitude of different standpoints; and, in the presence of so many independent sentinels-watching every movement and discussing its pro

priety-the machine of government moves forward more cautiously and more securely. But Romanism is directly opposed to intellectual progress; as, by requiring blind submission to one spiritual dictator, it discourages the exercise of the mental faculties, and proves a dangerous foe to civil and religious freedom. It reduces men to mere automatons; and then claims the right to use their united power to promotenot the general welfare of society-but its own aggrandisement. No State, with safety to the public interests, can now entrust the teaching of the Romish population entirely to the priesthood; for, by adopting the dogma of infallibility, they make the Pope the absolute arbiter even of their civil obedience. By stealthy advances, they have gradually obtained preponderating weight in the Irish Board of Education; and every accession to their influence has tended, not to improve, but to deteriorate the national system. One sect—and that the most unfavourable to mental cultivation-should not be thus permitted to direct an imperial institute; and the sooner the constitution of the National Board is readjusted, the better for the general welfare. In selecting individuals to superintend the management of the Irish National Schools, Government should not truckle to any Church, or virtually hand over the control to any one denomination; but, among the enlightened and cordial friends of education, should simply seek out those, who may be fairly expected to administer the trust most efficiently and faithfully.

In another department, the Irish Roman Catholic prelates displayed a most exacting and unreasonable spirit. They had already facilities for training far more candidates for the priesthood than were required by the population under their care.1 It was well known that multitudes educated at Maynooth were not settled in Ireland, but were transferred to

1 In addition to the students in Maynooth, there were, in 1868, in the Missionary College of All Hallows, 220 ecclesiastical students; and in the diocesan R. C. seminaries-thirteen in number-at least 500 other church students-making in all upwards of 700 preparing for the service of the R. C. Church-not reckoning those taught at the public expense at Maynooth. It thus apppears that R. C. Ireland has been educating priests for many other lands. See Freeman's Journal Church Commission, p. 385.

America and other lands. These youths were, to a great extent, fed and lodged at the public expense; so that they were more largely patronised by the State than were the aspirants to the ministry connected with either the Presbyterian Church or the Episcopal Establishment. In addition to Maynooth, the Roman Catholic hierarchy had other colleges which they could affiliate with the London University; and thus their laity, without difficulty, could obtain academic degrees.1 In the Queen's Colleges, they had an excellent system of higher education, conducted by Professors of admitted ability and scholarship, every one of whom, on admission to his chair, was required to enter into a solemn engagement that he would "abstain from teaching or advancing any doctrine, or making any statement derogatory to the truths of revealed religion, or injurious or disrespectful to the religious convictions of any portion of his class or audience." By violating this engagement, he rendered himself liable to dismissal. Roman Catholics were eligible to all the offices and honours of the Queen's Colleges; and the prelates could assign no satisfactory reason why their coreligionists should not be students and Professors. But they were determined not to yield. They seem to have been haunted by the apprehension that the faith of their youthful adherents would be shaken by the lectures of learned Protestants on logic, or metaphysics, or political economy; and that medieval Popery could not well bear the light of modern science. They therefore proceeded to set up in Dublin what they called a Catholic University; and, in a few years, they collected subscriptions

2

1 It would appear that examinations, in connexion with the London University, take place once a year at St. Patrick's College, Carlow. That college has long since been incorporated by royal charter with the London University. Fitzpatrick's Doyle, i. 47.

2 See Report of Her Majesty's Commissioners, &c., p. 7.

3 In a pastoral, issued early in May, 1865, Dr. Cullen declared that parents who permitted their sons to attend the classes of Trinity College, Dublin, were "unworthy of the sacraments of the Church, and ought to be excluded from them." He added :—“ Then come the Queen's Colleges, in which the teaching is more aangerous than in Trinity College."

for its maintenance amounting to £130,000. But, though supported by their united influence, this seminary did not flourish. Many educated Roman Catholics complained of the insufficiency of its teaching;2 and students, not quite prepared to bow down under the Ultramontane yoke, refused to attend its classes. The Roman Catholic prelates had the effrontery to apply to the British Government for an endowment to this monkish institute; and sought to obtain for it the power of conferring degrees. But, though a time-serving ministry, tempted by the prospect of political support, were at one time not indisposed to make these concessions, they were deterred from such a suicidal policy by the indignant protest of the British people.*

1 Westminster Review for January and April, 1867, p. 119. In 1855 the subscriptions amounted to £58,070 Is. 5d. Of this sum £27,616 had been collected in Ireland, £16,000 in the United States, £14,166 in England and Scotland, and the balance in different Roman Catholic countries. The whole sum contributed up to 1874 was £187,000. Most of this had been then expended. Fifth Report of the Royal Commission, pp. 25, 26.

2 Westminster Review, January and April, 1867.

3 According to the Fifth Report of the Royal Commission on Scientific Instruc tion and the Advancement of Science (London, 1874) there were in the academical year 1873-4, eighty-six students in attendance on the medical classes of this so-called University. The resident students in science and arts for the same year only amounted to thirty. The annual expenditure for maintenance and professorial stipends was £7,000 per annum. In 1874 the income exceeded £10,000. To induce students to attend, a sum of fully £1,000 a year is now given away “in prizes and bursés" (p. 37). Every professor must adopt the creed of Pope Pius IV. in presence of the rector. The professors must all receive the approval of the Roman Catholic hierarchy ; and a professor may at any time be dismissed by them. The Pope has given the rector the faculty of conferring degrees; though it is admitted that, in point of law, he has no such power. Notwithstanding the illegality of the proceeding, the University has already conferred degrees in theology, p. 26.

On the 14th of Jauuary, 1866, Archbishop Cullen forwarded to Government two letters, or memorials, on the part of twenty-nine Irish Roman Catholic prelates, proposing that the Catholic University be chartered and endowed, and that "the Queen's Colleges be re-arranged on the principles of the denominational system of education."

CHAPTER XII.

FROM THE DEATH OF DANIEL O'CONNELL TO THE PERIOD OF DISESTABLISHMENT. A.D. 1847 TO A.D. 1871.

THE IRISH GENERAL ASSEMBLY AND THE ULSTER REVIVAL.-THE EPISCOPAL CHURCH AND DISESTABLISHMENT.

THE Queen's Colleges were of singular benefit to the Irish Presbyterian Church. Her students had long been precluded from all hope of academic advancement; for, without conforming to the Established Church, they could not secure a single step of promotion in Dublin University. They now found themselves in very different circumstances. They had before them a fair field for competition; they saw one of their own ministers2 presiding over the college of Belfast; and they knew that, if worthy of the position, any one of themselves might yet occupy an academic chair. Though the famine had greatly quickened emigration, and thinned the population of many of the Presbyterian districts, the Presbyterian Church continued to move onward with undiminished vigour. From the Union of the Synod of Ulster and the Secession Synod, in 1840, to the period of Disestablishment, the General Assembly increased from 443 to 553 congregations. At the period of

1 The Board of Trinity College, Dublin, shortly after the erection of the Queen's Colleges, established scholarships open to persons of all religious persuasions. The professorships, except those connected with the Divinity school, were also opened to all denominations. See The Irish Difficulty, by an Observer, p. 43. London, 1868.

2 The Rev. P. S. Henry, D.D.

3 In 1854 the Presbytery of Munster joined the Assembly, and thus added seven to its congregations.